Andrei Kirilenko and I met while we were in Italy training for the Russian National Team four years ago. Since then we have kept in touch and it has been fun to follow his success as he plays for one of the best teams in Europe, CSKA. We talked Wednesday morning, while my former Russian teammate Vitaly Fridzon was at Kirilenko's house in Moscow. He talked about his recent broken nose, Jimmer, NBA, Mormons and adoption, among other things. Here is part of our conversation:

“The timing from complete lockout to all of the sudden the season starts in a few weeks has been crazy.”